6/21/2016

NOTE: This is a reprint of my review from the Sundance Film Festival. Swiss Army Man opens June 24th. Daniel
Radcliffe has cast quite a few spells as Harry Potter, but there isn't an
"expecto patronum" in the world that can match the flatulent magic of
his character's farts in Swiss Army Man. See, Radcliffe plays
a dead body with a gas problem. Yep, he is a corpse throughout the entirety of
the strange and tonally unsure directorial debut by "The Daniels",
successful music video directors Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, who seem
to be aiming for the same do-it-yourself spirit and fantastical earnestness of
Michel Gondry's and Charlie Kaufman's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless
Mind.

What they ultimately come up with is a lot of
hot air, literally, as the sound you'll hear most isn't star Paul Dano or even
Radcliffe. It's the sound of farts; constant, ripping farts that achieve often
incredible feats of fancy. Like, say, allowing the stranded Hank (Dano) to ride
Radcliffe like a jet ski across the ocean, powered solely by his breaking wind.
Magical farts. How Hank ended up that deserted island is unclear (at
first), but he's ready to call it quits. But just as he's about to hang himself
he spots Manny's (Radcliffe) dead body washed up on shore. Cue the
super-powered cheese cutting.

The power of Manny’s farts also seems to bring
him back to life. He jitters and shakes and even begins to have conversations
with Hank, who is more than appreciative of the company. It doesn't take long
before a bond is formed between the two, and the film takes on a sort of Cast
Away meets Weekend at Bernie's vibe, if everyone was
stoned out of their freaking minds. Manny's body does whatever Hank seems
to need at the time. He vomits up water when needed, he gets a compass boner at
the cell phone image of a woman (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) Hank has a crush on, but
more importantly Manny serves as a companion. Manny doesn't know a thing
about the outside world and so it's up to Hank to teach him about love,
happiness, fear, where poop comes from...y'know, the essentials.

Their discussions reveal more about Hank than the world, and
what becomes obvious is that he's extremely lonely. That seems to be the point
of all this weirdness, that people really don't like to be alone, and Hank has
escaped into a reality he can call his own. But that seems like a rather easy
observation to make and not really worthy of the audacious strokes the Daniels
try to pull off. Granted, they deserve credit for making such a risky venture,
and if the split reaction from Sundance is any indication this will definitely
be divisive. Despite the novelty of a gaseous corpse Daniel Radcliffe, and some
creative set design that recalls Gondry's Be Kind Rewind, the film
actually has very little to say about love, loneliness or anything for that
matter. But it has one heck of a fart machine.